Slowly but surely, the battered Panzerkampfwagen IV started to climb while behind them the sound of the Blue Veils’ firing grew fainter and fainter. They had escaped!
Thirty minutes later they bumped into the stalled Italian truck, its back filled with the Italian soldiers Schulze had kidnapped from the quay. They were drunk and unhappy, eating sticky chocolate sandwiches and drinking the Chianti they had stolen from the German Supply Depot. They were lost too and frightened, very frightened.
For a moment von Dodenburg was bewildered. While Matz and Schulze grabbed what was left of the Chianti, he leaned weakly against the side of the truck, drained of energy. However, the crackle of the radio in the truck’s cabin soon shook him out of his reverie.
By some stroke of good fortune, the Italians’ radio was on the column’s net!
Thrusting the anxious Italians out of the way, von Dodenburg grabbed the mike and bellowed into it. ‘Hello, here Sunray…here Sunray. Are you reading me? ...’
One hour later they had rejoined the column.
SEVEN
Angrily Slaughter scooped out the two yolks of the precious fried eggs with his fingers, Arab-fashion, and swallowed them. By the light of the flickering camel-dung fire, Yassa looked at him silently and thoughtfully, smoking his cigarette in the Mohammedan manner so that his lips did not come in contact with the tobacco, as the Prophet had prescribed. He was an incredibly wrinkled old man beneath his blue veil, his eyebrows plucked in what he thought was a seductive curve and great smears of kohl below the tired yellow eyes. Yet if the Blue Veil Chiefs face and manner were pathetic attempts at female coquettism, there was nothing weak or unmasculine about his determination. Stretching one painted hand to the warmth of the fire, he said: ‘We shall ride all day and all night. We might not catch them the night of the morrow, nor the night of the day after that.’
‘When?’ Slaughter demanded angrily, stubbing out his cigarette in the white of one of the fried eggs, as if he were grinding out the socket.
‘Do not worry, my friend,’ the Chief answered easily. ‘We shall earn your Horsemen. Perhaps in three nights.’
‘ When? ’ Slaughter persisted. He knew his Blue Veils, his ‘boys’ as he always called them to his superiors in Cairo. One had to pin them down; they were as skittish and as capricious as women.
‘Three nights, I have said,’ the Chief replied. ‘Like all infidels, they will rest at night. We will not. We will catch them, Englishman, and then –’ The Chief grinned at him over his veil, though there was no real warmth in his faded old eyes. ‘Then,’ he echoed, ‘we shall ensure that they never leave the desert.’
Slaughter shuddered in spite of the fact that the Blue Veils had been his lovers and employees ever since he had begun to use them for espionage purposes against the Italians in Libya in 1935. They would slit the Germans’ throats and unspeakable atrocities would follow that. Slaughter, his voice suddenly dry and husky, asked: ‘Where?’
‘The Great Ascent,’ the Chief said simply and with a gesture of finality tossed his cigarette into the fire. It flared up for a moment, illuminating the old man’s perverted face, and eyes which flashed with cruel anticipation of the slaughter to come.
SECTION THREE:
THE OASIS
‘Madam is the bravest of the brave. Not even Nasser and Sadat surpass her in courage and hatred of the English.’
Major Mustafa, Egyptian Army, to von Dodenburg, Ain Dalla Oasis
ONE
It was furnace-hot. In that heat the sand shimmered a crazy wavering blue. Wearily the column steered its way onwards.
‘It’s the khamsin,’ the ‘Prof’ explained through cracked lips. ‘Blows in from Central Africa across hundreds of kilometres, being heated more and more all the way.’
Von Dodenburg had never experienced a wind like this before, not even in the Caucasus. It was not like the heat that came from the sun,
Thirty minutes later they bumped into the stalled Italian truck, its back filled with the Italian soldiers Schulze had kidnapped from the quay. They were drunk and unhappy, eating sticky chocolate sandwiches and drinking the Chianti they had stolen from the German Supply Depot. They were lost too and frightened, very frightened.
For a moment von Dodenburg was bewildered. While Matz and Schulze grabbed what was left of the Chianti, he leaned weakly against the side of the truck, drained of energy. However, the crackle of the radio in the truck’s cabin soon shook him out of his reverie.
By some stroke of good fortune, the Italians’ radio was on the column’s net!
Thrusting the anxious Italians out of the way, von Dodenburg grabbed the mike and bellowed into it. ‘Hello, here Sunray…here Sunray. Are you reading me? ...’
One hour later they had rejoined the column.
SEVEN
Angrily Slaughter scooped out the two yolks of the precious fried eggs with his fingers, Arab-fashion, and swallowed them. By the light of the flickering camel-dung fire, Yassa looked at him silently and thoughtfully, smoking his cigarette in the Mohammedan manner so that his lips did not come in contact with the tobacco, as the Prophet had prescribed. He was an incredibly wrinkled old man beneath his blue veil, his eyebrows plucked in what he thought was a seductive curve and great smears of kohl below the tired yellow eyes. Yet if the Blue Veil Chiefs face and manner were pathetic attempts at female coquettism, there was nothing weak or unmasculine about his determination. Stretching one painted hand to the warmth of the fire, he said: ‘We shall ride all day and all night. We might not catch them the night of the morrow, nor the night of the day after that.’
‘When?’ Slaughter demanded angrily, stubbing out his cigarette in the white of one of the fried eggs, as if he were grinding out the socket.
‘Do not worry, my friend,’ the Chief answered easily. ‘We shall earn your Horsemen. Perhaps in three nights.’
‘ When? ’ Slaughter persisted. He knew his Blue Veils, his ‘boys’ as he always called them to his superiors in Cairo. One had to pin them down; they were as skittish and as capricious as women.
‘Three nights, I have said,’ the Chief replied. ‘Like all infidels, they will rest at night. We will not. We will catch them, Englishman, and then –’ The Chief grinned at him over his veil, though there was no real warmth in his faded old eyes. ‘Then,’ he echoed, ‘we shall ensure that they never leave the desert.’
Slaughter shuddered in spite of the fact that the Blue Veils had been his lovers and employees ever since he had begun to use them for espionage purposes against the Italians in Libya in 1935. They would slit the Germans’ throats and unspeakable atrocities would follow that. Slaughter, his voice suddenly dry and husky, asked: ‘Where?’
‘The Great Ascent,’ the Chief said simply and with a gesture of finality tossed his cigarette into the fire. It flared up for a moment, illuminating the old man’s perverted face, and eyes which flashed with cruel anticipation of the slaughter to come.
SECTION THREE:
THE OASIS
‘Madam is the bravest of the brave. Not even Nasser and Sadat surpass her in courage and hatred of the English.’
Major Mustafa, Egyptian Army, to von Dodenburg, Ain Dalla Oasis
ONE
It was furnace-hot. In that heat the sand shimmered a crazy wavering blue. Wearily the column steered its way onwards.
‘It’s the khamsin,’ the ‘Prof’ explained through cracked lips. ‘Blows in from Central Africa across hundreds of kilometres, being heated more and more all the way.’
Von Dodenburg had never experienced a wind like this before, not even in the Caucasus. It was not like the heat that came from the sun,
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